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Sadiya Madu Gwary
Assuming the strike is suspended soon, do our universities have the capacity to accommodate the thousand of returnee students along with the three sets of jambites on ground?
It is no news that public universities in the country have been under closure for the past four months. All thanks to the Federal Government’s recalcitrance in coming to terms with the striking unions.
Strike in Nigerian universities has become a norm as a result of its recurring incidence. It is almost impossible to begin and complete a programme in any public university within the stipulated period indicated in one’s admission later. Adding a few months – at least, or a year and a half at most –is as mandatory as the one year mandatory national service.
Administration after administration since the return to civil rule in 1999 have continuously failed to address this menace threatening our already collapsing educational system.
A timeline of the university workers’ strike reveals that from 1999 to date, universities have had a total of 53-month long strike. From the 18 months in the administration of Former president Obasanjo, to the short-lived Late Yar’adua’s administration having a 4- month long strike, to the total of 13-month in Jonathan’s administration, and the current administration’s total of 18 months (still counting).
In fact, this latest strike action is one of, if not, the worst this country has ever witnessed. Not because of its longevity with no end in sight, but for leading to the total closure of universities as a result of the embarkment of all the university unions on the industrial action simultaneously.
Despite this glaringly pathetic situation of public universities in Nigeria, the FG earlier this week announced through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that returnee-students from Ukraine will be offered slots in the same universities that are under lock and key. This stirred a lot of uproar on the part of many Nigerians, especially students, who wondered if the FG is not aware of the current situation of public universities.
Assuming the strike is suspended soon, do universities have the capacity to accommodate the thousands of returnee-students along with the three sets of jambites on ground? The answer is a capital NO! Because the number of the current students have outgrown the capacity of the existing facilities – hostels, lecture theatres, and classrooms – in the universities.Or are there some invisible facilities on ground that are only visible to the Government?
This very issue is the reason for Academic Staff Union of University’s demand for revitalisation fund to upgrade these facilities in such a way that they meet the needs of the students.
It is true that this isn’t the first time the government had feigned ignorance to similar situations in the country that warrant serious attention, neither is it the first time it had made empty promises to Nigerians. However, this very one was too contemptuous for especially students to ignore.
The FG ought to know that this is no time for drama. It is high time it responded positively to the demands of universities’ unions (and of course other tertiary institutions on strike) so as to hasten the resumption of students to school.
Education is crucial to the development, peace, and stability of every society. Once the educational sector is rotten, every other sector suffers and gets suffocated from its resultant stench. We are approaching a critical period – election and electioneering. Students will be recruited as mercenaries to perpetrate all sort of vices during this period. And that will disrupt the peace and stability of all – including the government that fails to open the universities.
Though willful ignorance and empty promises on the part of Nigerian government are a cliché, but for the peace, stability, and development of this country, universities should be opened. It is said that “when one picks a book, he automatically drops the gun”.
Sadiya Madu Gwary
sadiyamadugwary@gmail.com
